Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 12:33:26 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@secnetix.de> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: grub boot loader or freebsd boot loader Message-ID: <200210061033.g96AXQoT034492@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <zksmzk8m5s.mzk@localhost.localdomain>
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Gary W. Swearingen <swear@attbi.com> wrote: > Nobody said the kernel would be considered a derivative of any > bootloader, but a CD which contains both is a derivative of both. Which is not a violation of the GPL. You can distribute GPL and non-GPL software on the same CD, or put it on the same FTP site, or whatever. That's what everyone does. We do it, Sun does it, etc. The problem with the GPL arises as soon as you merge code from GPL software with other code, e.g. by taking parts of its source and compiling it together to produce one object file or executable, or by linking them together (unless it is only LGPL and not real GPL). > And remember that you may boot FreeBSD from the NT boot loader, but > you'd better not publish a CD containing both. If you've got a license for the NT boot loader to do so, there's no problem to do that. > (Nobody says there's a > legal problem with using a GPL'd loader locally, but making it part of > the core of the distributed OS is too risky.) Certainly not. A boot manager is as separates as it can be from the rest of the system. It's running in real mode. It does not share or merge _any_ code with the rest of the system. And it is optional -- you can boot FreeBSD without it. Think about gcc in our base system. Or GNU-awk, GNU-tar, cvs, groff, gzip, send-pr, and many others. Just as an example, take awk (which is GPL, not even LGPL). It is linked against our (non-GPL) libc. Sure, you can install a different (slightly incompatible) version of awk from the ports collection, such as bawk, but the question is if we are even allowed to link gnu-awk with our libc. > Why is that not "mere aggregation", and allowed by the GPL? No, that's exactly the reason why the LPGL exists. > (Seeing your TLD, I wonder how software license issues are complicated by > the fact that many of the owners of open source software offer their > license under non-USA law. And whether the local laws of the licensee > AND licensor are involved. Arggh...) Of course they are involved. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the GPL clauses are invalid in Germany (and also possibly in other countries). I'm not a lawyer, though. Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream" (E. A. Poe) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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